Bhubaneswar: Today the world is celebrating the 153rd birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. From being the only Indian to be named TIME Person of the Year, having been given the honour in 1930, to being nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize, here are some facts about Bapu that will fascinate you.
>> The magazine described him as ‘Saint Gandhi’and later named him as one of the 25 Political Icons of all time. Gandhiji’s mark on world history in 1930 will undoubtedly loom the largest of all, wrote TIME.
>> Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1947. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948, two days before the closing date for that year’s Nobel Peace Prize nominations. While the Nobel Foundation’s statutes allow a posthumous award under certain circumstances, Gandhi did not belong to an organisation and had not left a will, making it unclear to whom the prize money would be awarded. On November 18, 1948, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to make no award that year on the grounds that “there was no suitable living candidate”.
>> He was also responsible for the Civil Rights movement in 4 continents and 12 countries.
>> He spoke English with an Irish accent because one of his first teachers was an Irishman.
>> Gandhi was a football aficionado and formed two football clubs named – the Passive Resisters – in Tshwane and Johannesburg, during his 20-year stay in South Africa.
>> He loved experimenting with food, wrote books and is believed to have prepared a diet chart for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, suggesting that he should eat leafy vegetables and avoid starch.
>> Gandhi along with other members of the Indian Stretcher-Bearer Corps, commonly known as the Indian ambulance Corps, helped in raising funds for the wounded during the second Boer war from 1899-1902 and the Zulu War of 1906.
>> He conversed with a lot of renowned people through letters. Leo Tolstoy, Alferd Einstein, Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin were among the many. He reportedly wrote a letter to German dictator Adolf Hitler, addressing him as ‘Dear Friend,’ requesting him to stop the war. Hitler never replied.
>> No leader was revered as much as Mahatma Gandhi. His funeral procession was 8 kilometres long.
>> His relics are preserved in the Gandhi Memorial Museum, Madurai. It contains 14 original artefacts, including the blood-stained cloth used by him on the day of his assassination.
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